I. ENCOUNTER WITH BEAUTY When viewing a recent untitled painting by Dublin artist Jaanika Talts a strange thought came to me. It was this: Between the elegant reach of an artist’s color-stained fingers toward her canvas and the haunted explosion of a soldier’s bullet inside his brother’s chest, somewhere a terrified soul is seeking shelter inside the warmth of a stranger’s voice, or an infant is squealing at the incomprehensible delight of discovering it is alive. As I said, it was a strange thought. Talts’ painting depicts a cluster of multi-colored roses in different stages of blossoming, nestled against the flesh of dark green leaves and framed by deep brooding shades of emerald, bronze, gold, ruby, and amethyst. There is no description (please see comments below) of the medium but it appears to be mixed acrylic and might include photography as well as an actual rose or two. The painting caught my attention only partly because it was accompanied by this quote: “Beauty will snatch us by the heart and love us until we are raw with understanding.” The words come from the poem “Calligraphy of Intimacy,” first published in 1996 in a small press magazine called Out of the Blue and later in the book I Made My Boy Out of Poetry. But the image drew my gaze mostly because it was something new from Ms. Talts and then because of what struck me as a sustained tension between persistent beauty and grace asserting itself while under fire. II. THE POEM The poem “Calligraphy of Intimacy” is about how relationships anchored in mutual need and affection sometimes turn unexpectedly into battlefields. The relationship might be between two people or two nations, two dreams or two cultures. At their core, they are defined by a gravitational pull toward the best within each other but superficial externals repeatedly block or sever their connection. That could, in many ways, describe the international community’s centuries-year-old waltz with peace and non-peace, and it consequently makes this poem a good one to share for World Poetry Day (March 21) and National Poetry Month (April) 2014:

Calligraphy of Intimacy

Perhaps one day our togethernesswill resemble the calligraphic designof the letters that spell Abd Al-Jami,a name denoting beauty: both inside and out.

Like the Arabic character alifcurving its loveliness towardsthe end of a numinous breathyou will wander towards an unseen mountain,re-emerging into life by way of bazaarsin Morocco. Or cafes in Paris.While I nurse sand dunes and canyons,shaking with the delicious certaintythat your wanderings and minewill soon converge, and lock, in the hairand screaming of the same urgent fire.

Like the seductive lines and silencesof Islamic calligraphy we will bowand clash three thousand swords. Or disappear between the warm shadowsof hands, whispers and kissingdisguised and protected by the shields of art.

Out of the canvas of our passion confusionwill rise up, blinding those too curiousabout who we are. Or what we do.Beauty will snatch us by the heartand love us until we are raw with understanding. Like two well-paid royal scribes we will let ourhands explain each other to each other and learnat last to comprehend this calligraphy called intimacy.

III. STARTLING SPLENDOR Some may recall that when writing about Talts’ art in Sensualized Transcendence, I described her two dominant styles as emergent expressionism and transformative impressionism :If emergent expressionism lends chromatic form and substance to in-between states of metamorphosis, then transformative impressionism may be described as endowing such stages of transition with metaphorical narrative. (from Sensualized Transcendence: Editorial and Poem on the Art of Jaanika Talts) Those qualities, along with the artist’s penchant for juxtapositions of unpredictable colors, remain evident in the new canvas. At first glance, the flowers almost appear to be trapped in a net of barely-visible anguish. Then take a second look and they could be resting inside a cosmic field of painted ecstasy, quietly breathing in the profound joys and smoldering sorrows that give them their startling splendor. As over-the-top as the above statement might sound to certain ears, it is no more so than the events and circumstances that have come to shade the character of the year 2014 thus far. On the day that I became aware of the painting, the mystery of Malaysia’s Flight MH370 had just grown considerably deeper, Russia’s military presence in Crimea had become more unsettling, and the Syrian landscape continued to overflow with blood as the region headed into the fourth year of its civil war. In fact, the previously-noted concepts of persistent beauty and grace asserting itself while under fire could serve as apt descriptions of how Earth continues to spin and dance through the cosmos while humanity carries on with struggles to give a living functional meaning to the word Love. At any moment within any hour or day or week or year, we are positioned between opportunities to affirm beauty and wonder in the world, and opportunities to assist in humanity’s needless destruction. Some might argue that the latter is not an opportunity at all but an unfortunate faith in self-annihilation and a dangerously macabre addiction to toxic nightmares. One need not, after all, call oneself an artist in order to embrace either the beauty that roses give to the world or the genius that one’s love does. You only need to allow it, and yourself, the respect and chance they deserve. by AberjhaniWorld Poetry Day 2014

Since I originally wrote and posted this blog, Ms.Talts has been kind enough to clarify for me the medium for this particular work of art. It is in fact a digital construction that includes photographed roses with a painting by her as the background for the roses.

I am allowing my original impressions to stand for the sake of authenticity insofar as my response to the work goes.